


Solitary Confinement

by EmeraldFondue



Series: Loosing Time [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Season/Series 12, Prison, Sorry for the sad, Thirteen doesn't like to stand still, and talking always gets the Doctor out of situations, the Judoon know that of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26698474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldFondue/pseuds/EmeraldFondue
Summary: She was left alone with nothing but her thoughts for days, weeks, months, and years. It was all the torture the Doctor could ever imagine. No stimulation. No distraction. Just her small body shaking against the prison walls. Maybe sobbing. Was she? It was hard to tell sometimes. Everything was so blurry. Space. But time most of all.An exploration of thoughts/feelings and what Prison might be like for the Thirteenth Doctor post s12 when the only thing she can do is think of all that has happened before and what that made her now - trying to find distractions as time passes her by.
Series: Loosing Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984192
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Solitary Confinement

Sometimes she imagines being able to feel the vibrations of her own trembling breath echoing through the damp air. Tickling her skin. Imagined it left her body and filled the space around her with invisible waves. Little bubbles of air, filled with sighs.

In reality, there was nothing of the sort surrounding her. It barely made a sound when she took a deep breath and all that she could feel was the cold, rough concrete underneath her limp body, behind her aching back.

She's been sitting in the same spot for a while, maybe a few days. Just leaning against the wall.

Her bones felt like they were no longer protected by a layer of flesh, fat, and skin - rather they just rubbed against the hard floor as if they were metal that's being sharpened into blades at every movement. Scratching across the floor.

It had been too long since they threw her in here, like an old rag. And she had lived far too long to endure imprisonment like this. Too long to not have it leave marks on her. This time around she might just not be able to brush it off the same light-hearted way that she used to.

She was left alone with nothing but her thoughts for day, weeks, months, and years. It was all the torture the Doctor could ever imagine. No stimulation. No distraction. Just her small body shaking against the prison walls. Maybe sobbing. Was she? It was hard to tell sometimes. Everything was so blurry. Space. But time most of all.

It had been fine at first, when she had just kept talking – filling the silence around her with nonsense and clever ideas, sometimes both at the same time. When on the surface she knew that no one was coming, yet had that little bit of hope somewhere deep, deep down inside that had carried her through such an enormous number of hardships in the past. Somehow she's made it this far and somehow she'd make it through. As always. Or so she thought in the depth of blacked-out nights.

But no one came and the Doctor, who couldn't even bear to live a single week at its natural time progression, had to wait. In silence. It made her think for a while. About Amy, the girl who waited. About Donna who'd spent a good long time looking for her (him?) everywhere. For Rose in the parallel universe, always trying to get back in touch with the Doctor. And the others. She's left them all to wait for her at some point. Me, the Viking girl she’d saved with the curse of immortality, who was forced to spend almost all of time whiling away in slow motion. There had been so many, maybe this was only fair. Finally a taste of her own medicine! The Doctor left behind to wait...

  
  


Eventually, she'd stopped talking out loud – it must have been about three months into her incarceration. Before she stopped counting the days. After she stopped trying to get someone, anyone else to talk to her. She'd have done a great many things just to get a cellmate. They could've even broken out together! Probably. Maybe the Judoon knew that about her, though. That she flourished in good company. That it only took a pretty girl for the Doctor to perform yet another miracle. So, of course, they didn't want to risk it.

Another two months and the walking around, occasional running, stopped helping her focus on literally anything other than what had led her here. Anything other than the Master and Gallifrey. Anything other than those who were no more. Again. The last time she'd been forced to face her loneliness hadn't ended well. It only brought her more heartsbreak and, after a few thousand years, the Doctor didn't know if her hearts could really handle another blow. It felt like they never did anything but break and at this very point, all that they needed was a soft whisper of air for her hearts to crumble into pale dust to be carried away by the wind of time.

She had just lived too long and cared too much. No! Not too much. Never too much. Caring was all that mattered in this universe! She'd never regret that she cared.

_ Always be kind _ , she'd told herself. Repeated words like a broken cassette player – the kind that Susan would use in attempts of making her listen to music she couldn't stand back then. Maybe, the Doctor figured, she would now. She could stand to rot in this cell a bit longer if that meant she got to see her again. Watch that smile spread to her granddaughter's eyes.

Could the Doctor have done more?

For any of them? For the universe – the one she'd endless times insisted on not owing anything to and yet here she was, feeling guilt rush through her blood like it was the very essence that she was made of. All that ever kept her going through hell and further.

  
  


Her first tears were quiet and she didn't care to allow them to fall, still trying to stay strong and composed and not feel anything too real, too deep. But that didn't last – as nothing ever does - and even when she managed to distract herself with the discovery of a newly interpreted scratch in the dirty floor, dusty ceiling, icy wall, or soundproof door, they just kept on running down her face once they started. It didn't matter what she was thinking about. They just kept coming. Tears she had collected and harbored over the years. About everything and nothing in particular. In shameless self-pity and noble regret. An emotional cocktail that stung in her eyes now.

Next, the sobs followed and strangled her, making her chest rise and fall with painful force as she choked on them. The ache pulled through her ribcage and into her arms and legs and stomach, connecting her fingertips and toes with tension. There was just no stopping it. Not when she hadn't a choice but let memories run wild in what was left of her imagination. _ Her entire life was a lie.  _ All of it. Her childhood more so than anything. Her growing up with the Master when she's already had countless other childhood-friends. The academy.

How often had she passed those dreadful exams? How often had she cheated after spending too much time running through red grass and not enough skimming books for lies of rotten time lords.

Even the things after she got out of her mother's clutches were a lie. How could anything be real when she wasn't?

The Doctor wasn't so dumb as to be missing out on the way she was spiraling. It was the same kind of helpless passenger feeling as having your hopes ripped from you when human-kind made the inevitable mistake of treating everyone who was  _ other _ than them with fear and hostility instead of kindness. The times where she couldn't do anything to stop them from making the wrong choice and just watched them. Dooming themselves. She wasn't any better than them right now. Making the wrong choice when she should know better. It felt like a recurring theme but the Doctor couldn't tell if that was true or not. How fitting.

Of course, the things the Doctor had an impact on were all real. At the very least they were undoubtedly so when time wasn't reversed or came crashing down on her right after. Oh, the things she'd seen that never happened. The things she'd been that never happened.

What she wouldn't give right now to have things not happen. To undo and sacrifice for the greater good. Have her hands bound in the face of a threat. Feel the enemies metaphorical – or not so much so – hand clasp around her throat, even if she wasn't about to save the day. Just to feel something. To do something. To have something be done to her. To react. Be with anyone other than herself for a single second.

Soon the Doctor would long for the company of a dull metal-pepper-pot over her current isolation, she was sure of that. Or maybe she already did. Thinking about a Dalek screaming a mechanic war-cry at her almost offered a fleeting moment of adrenaline. Not enough to linger and remain. Still.

If she wasn't the rebel. The hero. If she wasn't really as kind as she had hoped to be. If she wasn't real. What did that make the Daleks? The Cybermen? The rest of the Timelords?

On occasion, these thoughts spiraled even more so than usual and in some way, they carried her through the next few months. The ones where the Doctor wasn't counting time, couldn't keep track of her own thoughts for long enough anymore to do so.

Her eyes were so tired of the ever same view, not even the light or shadows around her changed. Her own Silhouette had long since stopped being of any company. Talking to it really hadn't helped before and wouldn't now. This wasn't a fairytale.

  
  


Guessing alone set her time in prison at somewhere close to a year, maybe a bit more, all of it in isolation. Not really that long in comparison to how old she was. It really wasn't much more than the blink of an eye, was it? Only that the time spent in this place felt longer than any other. Longer than a single night on Darillium with no one but the same person by her side. Which had been difficult at times, dreadful even, but nothing like this.

  
  


When year two approached she felt a small flicker of hope again. There wasn't really any reason for it and that only made the feeling grow stronger. The Doctors track record was a good indicator that this situation shouldn't last much longer and that she suddenly managed to have this excitingly positive thought again was a good sign, right?

But nothing happened. Nothing ever happened.

Going on a hunger strike was on her mind for a long time before she realized she'd never been met with anyone offering her food in the first place. It must've been something in the vents that kept her alive and somewhat well.

Not that she was particularly prone to getting sick, but wouldn't this be a good place to start? Maybe get carried out to the medical bay and have a little chat with the local Doctor. A science professional. A person. Did this prison have one? She should apply if there was an opening, it's been a few years since she's had a proper job!

Had the Doctor managed to compile just a bit more energy and willpower, she'd have hallucinated something like that. Getting out of this hole, chatting with someone clever, working on some problems together. Maybe this would have brought the hope back to her too, which had since ebbed away. But she couldn't find it in herself to imagine such hopeless ideas.

Days and nights never stopped being the same. What did change, however, was her hair. She had noticed that early on and it could've helped her keep time but she didn't know how fast it might be growing. After all, it's been a long time since she's really had long hair in the first place and even back then it was kept at some sort of maximum length. This time around she couldn't just cut it off when it started to bother her. Although it sort of didn't this time. It grew but she forgot how to care about it. She hadn't felt like herself in so long that her hair was just another part of her that didn't fit anymore. Next to sore bones and burning muscles the Doctor really just plain didn't care anymore. Simple as that. Step by step she stopped caring about all the little things.

Year three approaching didn't matter.

The Doctor no longer gave in or fought off thoughts of Gallifrey burning and friends lost, because they no longer attempted to grasp her attention in the first place. Realness wasn't a concept to the lonely timelord any longer and so she didn't cry and didn't think of much other than standing up every few days when the pain in her legs got too excruciating to rest on them for a moment longer. How surreal that she used to run on them so much.

All other hours were filled with blank stares accompanied by slow, quiet breathing.

If she had been real before, she stopped in year four.

It was just plain emptiness from here on out. Nothing happened. Nothing would happen.

She couldn't do anything anymore.

The Doctor thrived on danger, on adventure, and fear. Pounding hearts and Adrenaline. All of that was gone and it left her with numb thumps of two slow beating hearts and nothing else. No more vibrations in the hair and no more fear of never getting out. No more hope.

Just nothing.

She was about as ready to give up as she'd ever be. She wasn't even eager to give in, but she'd do it in two heartbeats nonetheless. It just didn't really matter now. She wasn't real anymore. The Doctor no longer existed.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd be thrilled for some Reviews, whatever you're thinking, drop it down below lmao :') 
> 
> I was thinking to maybe follow this up with a rescue OS? You know... add some comfort.  
> But I write so rarely, who knows if that'll happen... 
> 
> There's also a small Thasmin Hallucination outtake I wrote for this... very small! I don't know if anyone would want to read that?


End file.
